Schism
by Sunoko
Summary: She was a sinner, and it was now more than ever she wished the priest were still alive to take her confession. Anime continuation.


_Trigun is not mine, I'm just playing in the world for a bit. For Millyfan

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She was a sinner, and it was now more than ever she wished the priest were still alive to take her confession. He wasn't, and she wondered if that was but another nail on her cross.

It certainly was on Vash's.

Vash had returned to the two of them, carrying his unconscious brother on his back. They rejoiced, he rejoiced, and she felt as though life was springing anew. He still had his secrets, he still had his burden of sins, but they were all together again, and the guilt seemed to matter less and less. And with her help, with her partner's help, he slowly began to drop that weight. He began to let go of his sins. And slowly, ever so slowly, friendship began to blossom into something more.

It had been about a week after her partner was killed that he came to her in the dead of night, the bloody moon on the rise. He hadn't said a word to her since her partner's death, hadn't even registered her existence. She was startled and confused, wondering what he wanted at such a late hour. Before she could speak, he pressed his lips against hers fiercely, and she was scared. Her fear vanished like a mirage when she felt his tears onto her shoulder, and she welcomed him into her bed with open arms, because he needed it and she needed it too. It was a way to prove they were both still alive. And when he called out her partner's name, she hugged him closer. All she could do was cry with him, mourning the could have, would have, _should_ have beens again and again.

Afterwards, when he brokenly whispered to her that everyone he grew close to died, she found herself believing him. They both mentally ticked off the names, looking anywhere but at each other. She supposed she should fear for her life, but she remembered that he hadn't called her by her real name in a long time. He collapsed onto her bed, bathed in sweat, sex, tears, and moonlight, and she felt her heart break anew at the sight of this poor, mad, broken angel. In another lifetime (last week), she would have sought to comfort him, to counsel him, but it was too painful. Her grief overpowered her need to console.

He came each night, unburdening his sins onto her body. She was a blank canvas to him, and he would paint his memories of faces long gone overtop her own. Every night, their kisses were desperate, their lovemaking painful, awkward, and carnal. They never looked at each other. She felt so raw, so tired. The names he cried out were never her own— he cried for the priest, for his brother, for her dead partner, for people she didn't know, names from lifetimes ago. Some he called more often than others. Some he called only once. She found herself keeping a mental scorecard, and was shamed by her own audacity.

Sometimes, after he crumpled onto the pillows dead asleep, tears staining his cheeks, she wondered if it were wrong to let him do this to her, to take her and mold her into his needs. But she knew, deep in her heart of hearts, that this was all that was holding him together, all that was keeping him from turning into the monster his brother used to be. So she continued to be his blank canvas. What else could she do?

Despite their nightly activities, they studiously avoided each other during the day. Sometimes, she heard him moving about the house, muttering to herself. While the strange murmurs were frightening, she found it better than the overpowering, oppressive silence that reigned in his absence. She would sit with the typewriter, and write letters to home, letters to her partner's home (the grief was too fresh, too real to visit the grave yet), letters to the company. He would vanish, disappear before she awoke and she wouldn't see him much, if at all, until the night.

She would work odd jobs when and where she could, and he always helped with the money. She never asked where it came from. He would silently leave it on the desk with the typewriter for her to find. If nothing else, it kept them fed, clothed, and housed, and for that she was grateful.

She knew that it couldn't last like this, the silent attempts at normalcy during the day, the tortured escapism during the night. One or both of them were going to crack, and it would not be pretty. The strain of living in silence with the ghosts of the past surrounding them was growing harder and harder. It tore her down every night, playing the part of whomever he conjured in his head and becoming nonexistent in the morning. In the beginning, she tried with all her heart and soul to bring him to the present, to face the grief and pain and loss and guilt. He never did. When she tried (during the day, always, always during the day), he would stare at her.

If it was a good day, he'd stare at her as though she were a toma that had just learned to speak.

If it was a bad day, his eyes would be icy, cold, reminiscent of his brother's madness and evil. When the bad days came more and more frequently, she stopped trying, damning herself every day for not doing more. She wondered if this was her biggest sin of all.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if she hadn't fallen horribly in love with him. He needed her, and it was that, combined with her natural compassion and empathy, which caused her to love him so deeply. Silently, she vowed never to grieve aloud for him, for herself, for anyone anymore. She needed to be strong for him, even if it meant slowly cutting away everything that made her who she was. He was, with his darkness, consuming her spark of light, and she was letting him.

About two months after this routine of avoidance and desperation, he approached her. The twin suns were beating down hard into the small room where the typewriter sat, and the glare was so bright she could barely see him as he entered. She was shocked, but carefully schooled her face into its customary cheerful expression.

"Rem?" he began, looking at her closely. "Rem, why did you dye you hair? It looked so pretty black!"

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. "My hair?"

"Yeah. Change it back, please!" he said, grinning at her like a child. She could feel her heart breaking again for this poor man. She didn't know she had a much of a heart left to break— it had felt like dust for the longest time. And suddenly she knew, with a jolt of horror, that if she did as he requested she would never be Milly Thompson ever again.

"Hey, Rem? Have you seen Knives? I can't seem to find him anywhere," he asked, childlike. She swallowed again, trying very, very hard not to sob. _He's in the back, buried next to Meryl_, she wanted to say. _You killed him the day he killed her._ But the words died in her throat. All she could do was stare at him.

_They say good intentions pave the road to Hell_.

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Love? Hate? Mildly enjoy? Please let me know! Major thanks to Arbor for the beta job! You're the best!  



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